survey of the previous year with those of Commander Wilkes on the
Pacific coast. The first objective point was the Great Salt Lake
of Utah, of which very little was known at that time.

Carson was sent back to the fort to procure a number of mules.
He did as directed and rejoined Fremont at St. Vrain's Fort. The
region traversed by these explorers is so well known today that it
is hard to realize what a terra incognita it was but a short time
since. Perhaps it will be most instructive at this point to quote
the words of the great Pathfinder himself. The party arrived on the
21st of August on the Bear River, one of the principal tributaries
of Great Salt Lake. The narrative of Fremont proceeds:

"We were now entering a region, which for us possessed a strange
and extraordinary interest. We were upon the waters of the famous
lake which forms a salient point among the remarkable geographical
features of the country, and around which the vague and superstitious
accounts of the trappers had thrown a delightful obscurity, which
we anticipated pleasure in dispelling, but which, in the meantime,
left a crowded field for the exercise of our imagination.

"In our occasional conversations with the few old hunters who had
visited the region, it had been a subject of frequent speculation;
and the wonders which they related were not the less agreeable
because they were highly exaggerated and impossible.

"Hitherto this lake had been seen only by trappers, who were wandering
through the country in search of new beaver streams, caring very
little for geography; its islands had never been visited; and none
were to be found who had entirely made the circuit of its shores,